If by noise from creaking boards. Only a well secured floor will stop that. Until it ages but then its fair game. Cork wont stop that. It will dampen noise from walking or rolling things across the floor. Wont eliminate it. One thing to consider is if it is a nail down product (the floor) then you need to think about the length of staple or cleat to use. A standard 2" cleat wont secure the floor well enough through cork. That extra height the cork has takes away from the amount of bite the cleat will have on the subfloor. Not a huge issue in terms of price but its an easy oversight that some may not think of.

1.) Wood is wood. Structurally it is all the same, with a board here and there that will have natural defects. That is why you always order more then needed, for culling out those boards. 25 year warranties, reall mean nothing. They are a misleading marketing scam. These warranties cover the finish only, and are ver unrealistic. If the finish completely wears off the boards are replaced, but.... read it carefully!!! Traffic areas and user abuse are not covered! 2.) It is the milling and finish that make some wood better then others. Mirage, Lauzon, Mannington are all reputable companies that make fine products. Bruce Hardwood even has some excellent products, but they are so big and have so many offerings to meet several price points, they also have a lot of junk. 3.) Craft paper is not approved by NOFMA or the NWFA. It is an economical alternative for a slip sheet, and has no moisture retarder qualities. So upper floors it may be OK, unless there are dramatic humidity differences between the floors of the home. 15 and 30-lb. asphalt impregnated felt, is recommended for all installations it does not cost much and is absolutely a little security for ever changing crawl space humidity or basement humidity, below. Cork is costly. I provides some noise transfer relief to the floors below, but it does not eliminate it. It is effected by moisture, just like the wood flooring. 4.) The harder the wood, the less denting from dropped objects, and the psi of high heel traffic, puncturing the surface. Stiletto heels are a no-no on wood flooring!! Scratching is finish related, not wood hardness.

You could groove both edges with a router and an EZ-Groove bit (made for doing that with hardwood flooring) and then install a slip tongue made for the purpose. It is the easiest way to do this. Although the book says no, I would install the way your floor will look best. If your subflooring is that stiff douglas fir board flooring, it's not going to sag at this point. If it hasn't sagged in 100 years, it's not going to do that now. As for when to begin your installation...hard to determine from afar. You're going to have to take your best guess or get someone with a moisture meter to see that both the substrate and the flooring is within 4 percentage points of each other. Roofing felt is probably a good call.

SJ McCarthy, our contract is stated we are responsible for the materials and we pay for the labor. Unfortunately we never met nor discuss with the owner but only discussed in details ( in the proposal) with the project manager who is the solely the carpenter.) We just found out there were a lot of the DETAILS from the proposal were not explained (per the PM,but who knows) in detail to the owner or almost like "bait and switch" - for example like item #2- he spent more time because the owner did not get him another helper to help him- I told him this should not be the customer's expenses-Anyway we are willing to pay for it. The owner was offering to renew and establish a new contract from the original contact ( we felt that he cherry picking the items from the proposal, we marked them up then again he decided not to included) for the unfinished works . Once he agreed in our 2nd meeting (another example: he agreed tiling our study room to be included from the original contact in our 1st meeting then when he write the REVISED CONTRACT- he wants to charge us ), but again we are facing the same old stories-he tried to change the wording. We were burned so many times and now we diligently review line by line knowing the owner's personality. He kept saying he lived by the contract-then I told him then he should honor the low estimated to install our engineering hardwood floor including removing the carpet-in the end he says he would honor but he did not including the cost in the new REVISED contract which we add into it - we are so tired with his games. So now we put a contingency - once we agree with the new contract, no more additional expenses from the previous work was done- and we do agree that we need to be notified first and need both signatures for additional expenses from the new contract. and no more point finger of "not included" since we have discussed in detailed and are in the contract. The new addition has a hardwood floor installed - with Dri-core. Once hardwood floor was installed- they are some areas squeak- we were told by PM -put a marked up then he would fasten without explaining to us-these would be additional ridiculous charges (PM told the owner, too-we told PM that they should explain it to us- ) Regarding the installing the engineering hardwood floor is for our existing rooms(concrete slabs that has plywood already)- we are told just to put a vapour barrier. Is it possible to let me know what brands for the glues have to be moisture resistant ($2/sf) or moisture PROOF ($3/sf).? The manufacture instruction suggests to use Franklin Tongue and Groove adhesive (cross linking polyaliphactic emulsion glue) www.titebond.com -any suggestions? This Applachian engineering hardwood floor - FLOATING only needs GLUE between the wood (tongue and groove per the manufacture manual ) then would be FLOAT - this is not to be GLUE DOWN on our concrete floor (could be glue down if necessary but not in our case). Here is the website- on PAGE 9 http://www.appalachianflooring.com/uploads/general/documents/engineered-installation-guide.pdf We trust the PM and we pay for it- we just want to move on and complete the project-It has been almost 10 months. We have to do what we have to do to protect ourselves now- The owner refuses to install our towel bar in our new shower without charging us, and we told him we will take care them by ourselves. I will update this post and hoping for a better solution. Thank you